


Herald Alexius: Trespasser Drabbles

by NorroenDyrd



Series: Should Never Have Existed [22]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Domestic Fluff, Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC, Family Bonding, Fluff and Angst, Multi, Non-Canon Inquisitor (Dragon Age), Originally Posted on Tumblr, Pain, The Anchor (Dragon Age)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-25 22:44:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15650433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorroenDyrd/pseuds/NorroenDyrd
Summary: Two drabbles set in my Herald!Alexius AU during Trespasser, both written for Tumblr prompts. Looking through the general series description would help with context.





	1. And All Was Well

As she brushes past him on her way to take a seat at the breakfast table, almost uncannily relaxed in a loose shirt and leggings, her braid bouncing against the back of her neck, Cassandra leans against him for a moment and gives him a little kiss. He does not look up from the letters he is sorting - mostly reports from the advisors on how the preparations for the Exalted Council are progressing, and a letter of gratitude from Orzammar, for sharing the newest version of the experimental Blight vaccine with the Legion of the Dead, in memory of Lieutenant Renn - but his face lights up with the soft glow of a smile.  
  
Felix knows both that kiss, and that smile - the token of quiet domesticity, the reassurance that everything has settled into its place, and nobody is in mortal danger any more. He still has not quite learned to suppress that first, instinctive pang of discomfort at seeing Father share this kiss with someone  who is not Mother. And perhaps he never will. But once that first moment passes, Felix smiles too; after everything that has happened, he could not hope for the smile to ever return.  
  
While the imprint of the kiss still lingers, Cassandra snatches one letter from the pile for herself, and sits down, legs crossed leisurely, to unfold it. The paper is blackened around the edges, as if singed by dragon fire; and Felix can’t help but chortle into his glass as he imagines the circumstances under which it was written.  
  
She must be getting up to the craziest adventures with Bull and his Chargers, his… stepsister, he supposes. Or just sister. That sounds much better. After the terrible conflict with his grandfather, his parents were reluctant to have more children, much as they had originally wanted to - but he has always wondered what it would be like, having a wayward but beloved sibling (and Dorian does not quite count). So it was a most delightful twist of fate when Nadia Trevelyan, the one-time Herald whom Father accidentally replaced, turned out to be Cassandra’s long-lost daughter by the adventuring companion of her youth, Regalyan d'Marcall.  
  
‘Nadia promises that she and Bull will make it to the Council,’ Cassandra peers into the scorched missive, her expression both amused and vaguely horrified.  
  
‘Wearing their brand new… Wyvern skull hats?’  
  
In the seat beside Felix’s, Bethany stiffens.  
  
‘Um… I don’t think that it’s really such a good idea. Won’t Cyril de Montfort be overseeing the Orlesian delegation? Son of Duke Prosper de Montfort? He may have… unpleasant associations with wyverns’.  
  
Cassandra sighs.  
  
'I remember that… mishap from the Tale of the Champion. But, considering how his father treated you and your brother, you are far too generous with the man’.  
  
'That’s Bethany to the core,’ Felix murmurs, wrapping one arm around her shoulders and sharing a little domestic kiss of his own.  
  
Bethany giggles, little dimples appearing on her cheeks.  
  
'Oh, thank the Maker my students are not seeing their Enchanter being all mushy!’  
  
'That would be quite a disaster,’ Father laughs, before passing the letters addressed to Felix to his end of the table with a swirly flourish of telekinesis.  
  
Well now. Dorian is wrapping up his little vacation in Antiva with Zevran. Whom he has finally started calling amatus. Honestly, Felix thought that he would never live to see the day (quite literally; but he had better not use such expressions around Father). He, for one, likes to believe (and Cassandra is in ardent agreement with him) that these two have been in love from first sight - right from that moment when Zevran made his dramatic entrance in the middle of an Antivan Crow ambush, set for 'the heretical Inquisitor and his Tevinter minions’ by some wealthy southern zealot, and rescued a wounded Dorian.  
  
Felix knows full well why it took so long for Dorian to admit and embrace his true feelings - but at least now all is well. Their story - this head-spinning, heart-gripping whirlwind of time travel and betrayal and acceptance and first and second loves - has almost run its course. The world is saved, heavily scarred but still standing; and Tevinter is beginning to stir, almost ready to shake off the yoke of 'old glory’ that has been holding it back. Father has Cassandra; Dorian has Zevran; Nadia has Bull; Hawke and Merrill still have each other, even after his brief disappearance into the raw Fade; the lovely Wendy Surana, who has  been so much help with researching the means to subdue the Blight, still has Loghain, despite all odds, and her best friend Levyn… Or, well, Jowan… has Blackwall… Or, well, Thom Rainier. Josephine, undaunted as always, is juggling the Council paperwork with her preparations for a wedding with Alistair, whose mother Fiona seems to have found solace with Leliana - and Felix himself should really find a friendly ear to subject to countless anguished questions about whether or not it will be right for him to ask for Bethany’s hand in marriage.  
  
The happy ending is almost within their reach. All that is left is to decide the fate of the Inquisition.  
  
'Is Dorian writing anything int…’  
  
Father’s question is cut short by an abrupt intake of breath - so sharp and so hoarse that Felix and Cassandra exclaim almost in unison,  
  
'What’s wrong?!’  
  
'Nothing’s wrong! Just… Just something in my throat,’ he reassures them, hiding his left hand behind his back.


	2. Not Ready

Preceding his (usually flourishing and quite dazzling) entrance into his mentor’s study (even if it is technically just a little corner at the palace, lended to him by the Orlesians for the duration of the Council talks) is a hard habit to break. But this time, Dorian taps his knuckles on the blue-painted wood swiftly and lightly, as a mere formality, and does not wait for an ‘Enter!’ before he slips in. There is hardly any time for a polite exchange of greetings: he is here to tell Alexius to hurry up. Everyone else is ready to pursue the Eluvian trail, which is almost literally red hot for now, but may begin to cool off at any moment. And if it does, Cassandra may just start breathing scalding vapours out of her nostrils.  
  
  
Dorian half-intends to spur Alexius on with some manner of quip on the subject - but the words wilt and crumble in his mouth, leaving a rather rotten aftertaste, as if he has just taken a huge bite of the finest moist Fallow Mire turf, which is now clogging up his windpipe.  
  
  
He finds his mentor poring over a lopsided stack of papers, his eyes darting to and fro in a frantic expression Dorian has not seen since the first days of Felix’s illness. His right hand, trembling and covered in paper cuts, is groping amidst the mess on the desk in search of something - while his left, the one branded by Corypheus orb during that time travel madness, is pressed, limp-wristed, to his chest, a pulse of green shooting through it every couple of seconds and extending with every charge into a crawling net of vivid green veins that definitely were not there before.  
  
  
‘What’s going on with your Mark? It should not be doing that, should it?’  
  
  
Perhaps Dorian’s question has come out more abrupt than he intended - the way Alexius reacts to it, one might think that his robes have been set on fire.  
  
  
'Dorian?’ he asks shrilly, looking up from his papers with a start and hiding his left hand behind his back in a badly coordinated, choppy motion.  
  
  
His face is a whole palette of grey, from light blotches of perspiration on his forehead and cheeks, to deep, almost black circles around his eyes. The left side of his body appears oddly stiff, as if he has suffered a stroke: with a faint chill gathering up his spine, Dorian guesses that the pain from the Mark is sending out long-reaching echoes. Like a cursed magical toothache. In one’s hand. Yes. Very cheery image.  
  
'Dorian… You were not supposed to…’  
  
  
'I did knock,’ he retorts mechanically - but before that phrase fully fades into silence, he is already by Alexius’ side, carried towards the cluttered desk in a flash of Fade Step.  
  
  
'How long have you… Been like this?’ he asks his mentor quietly,resting one hand on his shoulder. Ostensibly to give the question a more secretive, intimate air - but in reality to keep Alexius from giving in to the pain and toppling forward. The palace desk must be quite valuable, after all.  
  
'Since… Shortly before the Council…’ Alexius replies in a faltering, scarcely audible whisper. 'It began… With a prickle of pain… That is mounting by the minute…’  
  
  
His mouth twists, and his voice rushes in pitch to a scream of frustration.  
  
  
'Damn it, my own hand is trying to kill me, and I don’t even have a will written out!’  
  
  
'Is that what you have been trying to do, locked in here?’ Dorian guesses, quickly scanning the paper pile.  
  
'Well, you and I did not reclaim part of my holdings back home just for them to go poof after I am gone, did we?’ Alexius points out irascibly - and Dorian almost smiles at the return of snark to his voice… But the next thing he says makes his stomach grow numb with cold all over again.  
  
'I have been neglecting this for far too long; telling myself I wasn’t ready… That is my problem, isn’t it? I am never ready… Never ready to let go. Of Livia, of Felix, of the Venatori, of my own life…’  
  
'You are delirious,’ Dorian cuts through his despondent musings with a loud, curt decisiveness (most clever ploy to mask the tremour in his voice, if he does say so himself).  
  
'And also, an absolute killjoy. One of the reasons Zevran and I interrupted our Antivan vacation for this dreary Council business was to cheer for you as you wed Cassandra. I already have an appointment at the tailor’s, which I will drag Felix to as well. None of us shall suffer a cancellation’.


End file.
